Tara campaign update: lock-ons and digger-diving, plus protest camp contact

I’m turn­coat ACS archae­ol­o­gist. I’m involved in Tara Cam­paign since June 2006 and thats my sto­ry about clamp­ing to a lor­ry at 31st of Jan­u­ary.

Wednes­day evening at Rath Lugh Ressis­tance Camp was quite nor­mal like every oth­er day. Few pro­test­ers were sit­ing in the Round­hause around burn­er, hav­ing tea and good con­ver­sa­tion about how bad multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions real­ly are. Approx­i­mate­ly about one o’clock when we were sit­ting in silence con­tem­plat­ing the idea of mega­lith­ic rock art being influ­enced by cymat­ic pat­terns caused by drum singing, six more pro­test­ers showed up. They bring with them idea of lock on to tar machine at Sol­diers Hill, which was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced by all of us. Soon we formed think tank and brain­stormed through idea of that kind of Direct Action. After an hour we were ready and went to our beds to have a good rest.

I’m turn­coat ACS archae­ol­o­gist. I’m involved in Tara Cam­paign since June 2006 and thats my sto­ry about clamp­ing to a lor­ry at 31st of Jan­u­ary.

Wednes­day evening at Rath Lugh Ressis­tance Camp was quite nor­mal like every oth­er day. Few pro­test­ers were sit­ing in the Round­hause around burn­er, hav­ing tea and good con­ver­sa­tion about how bad multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions real­ly are. Approx­i­mate­ly about one o’clock when we were sit­ting in silence con­tem­plat­ing the idea of mega­lith­ic rock art being influ­enced by cymat­ic pat­terns caused by drum singing, six more pro­test­ers showed up. They bring with them idea of lock on to tar machine at Sol­diers Hill, which was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced by all of us. Soon we formed think tank and brain­stormed through idea of that kind of Direct Action. After an hour we were ready and went to our beds to have a good rest.

I waked up ear­ly in the morn­ing and moved myself to the Round­haus. Some pro­test­ers were on quick sup­ply run, oth­er prepar­ing nec­es­sary equip­ment for action. Two of us were decid­ed to lock on to machin­ery, oth­ers were mak­ing sup­port for us. At 1020 GMT we depart­ed to cars. Morale was high, peo­ple smil­ing and jok­ing all over the road to Sol­diers Hill. At 1032 GMT we arrived at sites main gate and jumped out of car. Main objec­tive was tar machine so we moved quick­ly towards it, pass­ing by two work­ers with angle grinder rip­ping off tar­mac from the day before (they prob­a­bly had some flaws in it and need­ed to lay it again).

For­tu­nate­ly for us next to tar machine was lor­ry with tar trans­port so I chose that one as I knew that oth­er pro­test­er is aim­ing tar machine. When we approached them, there was a lit­tle bit chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion with work­ers run­ning around, obvi­ous­ly they had no idea about true nature of our action. I found­ed good spot under­neath the lor­ry and using work­ers igno­rance locked myself on. When they real­ized whats real­ly going on it was already to late. I placed my self com­fort­ably, make a rol­ly and attempt­ed to read Archae­ol­o­gy and Soci­ety by G. Clark. I was inter­rupt­ed by secu­ri­ty, Fer­rovial Span­ish work­ers and my favourite health and safe­ty offi­cer Mark Kleary.

Oth­er pro­test­ers left and were sup­port­ing two of us from out­side of con­struc­tion site. When fer­rovial or Kleary were not around I had nice chat with work­ers, they were quite sat­is­fied to have a break in their job. It was quite cold and one of them gave me gloves to warm my hands.

Then Gar­dai came in and start­ed usu­al drill (whats your name, would you live the site bla bla bla). We were ded­i­cat­ed to stay and make them cut us of from machin­ery. Mark Kleary him­self, was the man who cut my d‑lock. Before doing that he was say­ing some­thing about cut­ting dif­fer­ent parts of my body so he exposed him­self clear­ly as a psy­chopath. To be hon­est I’m lit­tle bit afraid of that man and I men­tioned that to Gar­dai. They did not com­ment­ed that.

It take three dif­fer­ent scis­sors and 2,5 hours to cut us off. After that we were hand­cuffed and tak­en to Gar­da Sta­tion at Navan. We were searched, sep­a­rat­ed and placed in dif­fer­ent cells. Oth­er pro­test­ers gath­er around Gar­da Sta­tion build­ing and were blow­ing whis­tles and shout­ing encour­ag­ing words. After some time we were tak­en to Dublin. There we expe­ri­enced very quick, fast food like court case.

We were col­lect­ed from court by fel­low pro­test­er. Now we are under bail con­di­tion until next court case which will be Feb­ru­ary the sixth, but keep work­ing for the cam­paign. In next hour I’m going to Sol­dier Hill to sup­port Dig­ger Divers by mean of ban­ner protest­ing. So that’s my sto­ry.

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Help is need­ed imme­di­ate­ly on site with cam­eras bat­ter­ies and gen­er­al sup­port. Please pur­chase phone cred­it for the vig­il phone 086 1758557 If you can’t come to the hill con­tact us at tarapark@sacredireland.org maybe there is some­thing you can do from your com­put­er or land­line.
Today, Feb 6th. Ash wednes­day.…. a dig­ger is on the arche­o­log­i­cal site less than 30 feet from Lis­mullen Henge but has been pre­vent­ed from work­ing. 12 activists have stopped con­struc­tion work­ers from unload­ing 3 dumper loads of hard core on the Lis­mullin arche­o­log­i­cal site. Gar­dai have been on site and tak­en names and threat­ened arrest. This work has been deemed ille­gal by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. It is also against pub­lic opin­ion, see full results of recent sur­vey on www.sacredireland.
A cer­e­mo­ny took place on the henge at Lis­mullin, Imbolg Feb 3rd. 2008. There will be anoth­er cer­e­mo­ny this Sun­day Feb 10th at 3pm
All wel­come.

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Demon­stra­tion at Lis­mullin morn­ing of 7th Feb — 8 AM

Time to get real. Time for hocus-pocus over.

Demo­li­tion works con­tin­ued today at the Lis­mullin nation­al mon­u­ment, which lies in the mid­dle of the M3 motor­way route, near the Hill of Tara, despite the fil­ing of High Court action yes­ter­day by Gor­don Lucas.

A large protest is planned for 8.00 AM tomor­row morn­ing, beside the Lis­mullin site. Demon­stra­tors are trav­el­ling from dif­fer­ent parts of Ire­land to object to the demo­li­tion works pro­ceed­ing, while the mat­ter is before the courts.

Small­er demon­stra­tions have been tak­ing place on a week­ly basis, and today two more demon­stra­tors appeared before Judge Bro­phy in Navan Dis­trict Court, charged with tres­pass, after being arrest­ed last week.

Rhi­an­non Cur­tis from the UK had her case dis­missed, because it was a first offence. Marcin Saw­ic­ki, from Poland, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as an archae­ol­o­gist on the M3, had his case adjourned until next week, when an inter­preter was ordered to be present.

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Mass action at Tara, Mon­day 11 Feb, 12 noon

Just back from a very inter­est­ing day at Tara. Pho­tos are to fol­low that show the dev­as­ta­tion afoot up there, espe­cial­ly at Sol­dier Hill where con­struc­tion work­ers are rush­ing to build the 50 acre Blun­del­stown Inter­change. Lis­mullin and Rath Lugh are also very vul­ner­a­ble right now.

A day of mass protest at Tara is now planned for Mon­day, 11 Feb, at 12 noon. We are aim­ing to get var­i­ous groups and indi­vid­u­als to take part, as the sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal. If we all pull togeth­er for this, then we can have a strong impact, on the ground and in the media.

So make a date in your diaries, spread the word, and hope­ful­ly we’ll see some of you on Mon­day.

For any­one who wants to stay around up there for a while, the camp in Rath Lugh is in real­ly good shape, with warm, dry accom­mo­da­tion avail­able for activists. The guys up there are doing a great job, and it’s now time for every­one who cares about Tara to act.

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11th feb —

The sit­u­a­tion is esca­lat­ing at Lis­mullin. Dig­gers are try­ing to cross the pro­tect­ed area of the Nation­al Mon­u­ment. There is no Gar­da pres­ence. More machin­ery is arriv­ing and pro­test­ers are attempt­ing a block­ade. Please sup­port in any way you can, con­tact all media, bring sup­plies, video and pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment. Join the peace­ful protest and spread the word. Urgent Call Out Now!
Dig­ger

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It has been con­firmed that a dig­ger did indeed suc­ceed today in dri­ving right across the front of the Esker of Rath Lugh. This area is clear­ly marked and fenced as the Exclu­sion Zone/Preservation Area. Pro­test­ers also report oth­er machin­ery includ­ing huge earth movers com­ing right up as far as the fences.

There is ample room for dig­gers to manoeu­vre with­out going near the exclu­sion area. WHY WASNT THIS DRIVER ARRESTED ?

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The Rath Lugh Protest Camp needs your sup­port: The Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp is sit­u­at­ed two and a half kilo­me­tres from the Hill of Tara, on the Front Line of the pro­posed M3 between Lis­mullen and Baron­stown.

Rath Lugh is the out­er base camp for the Hill of Tara, enabling activists to keep a per­ma­nent vig­il on the move­ment of vehi­cles and per­son­nel work­ing on var­i­ous con­struc­tion sites through­out the val­ley. Activists also main­tain a con­stant pres­ence on the Rath Lugh Nation­al Mon­u­ment, which is cur­rent­ly under a tem­po­rary preser­va­tion order. The aim is to see this sig­nif­i­cant mon­u­ment per­ma­nent­ly pre­served in-line with the rest of the Tara Com­plex.

“We need peo­ple urgent­ly to halt the Val­ley’s destruc­tion. Every­one has a skill or tal­ent they can lend to this protest. Bring wellies, raingear, sleep­ing bags, torch, lighter, plen­ty of warm cloth­ing, and good spir­its. The protest is only going to get stronger, we will con­tin­ue to oppose the motor­way until it is moved, so come to Rath Lugh as quick­ly as you can. WE NEED YOU ALL NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Tara is call­ing, don’t ignore the call.”

Rath Lugh Camp Num­ber: +353 86 1537 146